


Wormwood, Aloe, Amaranth

by Anna_Hopkins



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Prompt Fill, not sure where this is going yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-26 04:34:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14992874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Anna_Hopkins
Summary: Originally a prompt fill for a prompt I wrote -- The children of Harry and Ginny, watching from the sidelines as Harry works through his repressed grief about killing Voldemort (or, as Harry dates a still-alive Voldemort behind Ginny's back and gets way too attached) -- but it's taking a weird turn.





	1. Chapter 1

Someone was pacing upstairs in the study, and going by experience, it was probably Harry. From their beds on the floor below, James and Albus shared a concerned glance, before looking back up at the ceiling. The pacing went on for a while before Albus murmured, “Oh, that’s right. It’s almost Halloween, then, isn’t it?”

Every year around Halloween, their dad got restless and nervy, and forwent his morning coffee in favor of pacing in the study just before dawn. Mum, if she was in the house at the time, seemed not to notice – or maybe she was only pretending – but more often, she brought James, Albus and Lily on a several-day visit to the Burrow for the Weasley family reunion long since scheduled there.

It was starting earlier this year, though, Albus noticed. Harry normally started with this at the beginning of the week of Halloween, and finished the night after the holiday. But it was only mid-October right now, and Harry had been pacing all month, around the same time every morning. If they pressed their ears to the door (or used Uncle George’s Extendable Ears), they could hear their dad whispering to himself, but they couldn’t make out whatever it was he was saying. The lilt of the words sounded almost like an incantation or a prayer to Albus, who had heard of such things being spoken for pureblood rites of passage.

James had once told an impressionable young Albus that Harry was defending the house against an ancient curse, one that he’d taken on to defend the world. Even now, years after they’d grown out of that storytelling phase, Albus couldn’t help but consider it. Why else would Harry have bought an old manor in a Muggle village, one already furnished with old magical antiques, if it hadn’t belonged to some cursed family or another – just like that flat in London that Harry used to talk about, the one with the screaming portrait and the house-elf nobody liked.

“It’s weird,” Scorpius said to Albus one night when they were staying at Malfoy Manor. “Your house, I mean.” But when Albus had related James’ old story about it being cursed, the blond boy shook his head. “Even cursed houses are still mostly normal, Al. Yours is less like a house and more like a tomb.”

Albus remembered that statement – _like a tomb_ \-- now, and wondered.


	2. Chapter 2

Lily hadn't noticed it until the year they didn't visit the Burrow, but Harry never really spoke to anyone during October. That had stood out to her more than the pacing: it was like he was off in his own world, like the little boy in her favourite children's book. Lost in thought, but more literally.

Mum tried to keep her, Albus and James out of their father's way while he wandered about the house. "He's just had a long day," she said at first, until the excuse wore out. Lily's brothers speculated about the _house_ somehow being involved, as if a building could control people -- ha!

In her opinion, he looked like Grandma Molly did when someone mentioned their late Uncle Fred. Lily had only learned to call that expression _grief_ when she was seven or eight, when Mum explained it (and why calling her doll 'Freddie' made Grandma look so sad).

She presented this information to her brothers while they were muttering to each other one night. "Maybe the house isn't cursed," she suggested, "but it has something to do with someone Dad really misses that passed away."

Just to be stubborn, James pointed out that it didn't mean the house couldn't also be cursed. Albus made a thoughtful expression at that, and said he'd ask Scorpius if he knew who might have lived here. "What if the person who owned this house was the one Dad misses?"

Meanwhile, Harry paced in the study upstairs, circles and circles. Every morning his eyes were red-rimmed, as if he'd been crying. Whoever it was that had died, Lily thought, their father had really loved them.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not yet sure where this is going but it has a somewhat eerie feel.


End file.
